The true cost of concealed carry

In a previous installment I showed you a story from Texas which showed how concealed carry licenses were more common in whiter, richer areas in Houston than they were in poorer and less white areas. This is a common story. When you make a right contingent on having money, only the relatively well off will exercise that right. Poor people don’t have the money to fly to Paris, their right to do so is irrelevant.

It is a well established principle that the government is bound to accept your right of free speech, but the government is not required to pay you so that you can do it. You can print whatever newspaper you like, but We The People are not required to give you money to buy paper and ink. The same thing goes for the Second Amendment. If you want to keep and bear arms, go buy the gun yourself. The US Treasury isn’t going to cut you a check to cover your new Glock. The issue comes when the Government requires you to pay a fee in order to exercise your rights. If the Government required you to have a permit, even if it cost one dollar, in order to run a newspaper, the ACLU would go ballistic. Why then is it legal to require a person to pay the government for a permission slip to buy and carry a gun.

You could cut some corners by buying ammo in bulk. You could go to the store and buy the gun, belt, mag carrier, holster, and a box of ammo for $652. Everything else is state mandated (or Brent mandated) extra. The costs above gun, belt, holster, and mag carrier are a minimum of $1000. You could further economize by buying a cheaper revolver or a used police gun. But you can’t get around the extra costs mandated by the state.

Why do you suppose that these costs exist? It’s to keep the poor people from exercising their rights. In many cases, poor equals non-white. If you can’t ban something, you can at least make it too expensive for the “wrong” people to do it. And that’s the point.